Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Wiggles/archive3

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 00:03, 17 April 2008.

[edit] The Wiggles

previous FAC (18:16, 18 February 2008)

Nominator --Figureskatingfan (talk) 00:54, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments

  • "Australia's "richest entertainers."" - this should be a statement rather than a quote
This was a quote directly from the source, but I can see how it can be redundant, so I deleted the phrase. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 04:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

*"seventeen gold, twelve platinum," - 2 links to the same article

  • "the touring company" - first mention of this...you called them a band until now. Clarify
Done.
  • Paul Paddick should be listed in the infobox as a member, I think
I believe this has already been discussed, probably in its GAN, but I can't find it. Paddick, as important as he is to The Wiggles organisation, is not a full member of the group, and came along a few years after the group was formed. Capt. F was created right off, but played by Anthony at first. The SMH article about him ("Master of Sword Play") makes this point very clear: Paddick is an employee of the organisation, much like Sam Moran was as a Wiggly dancer and understudy before he replaced Greg. So no, he shouldn't be listed in the infobox. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:21, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Have to agree with Figure. While Paddick is a major persona, he is not considered part of the core group. He's generally introduced first among the friends.Balloonman (talk) 06:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
OK, that's fine. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 04:16, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • References - all publishers that are newspapers (New York Times, SMH, etc.) need to be in italics
Done, replaced publisher perimeter in templates with work. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

*"before returning to school" - school or university? Applies throughout this section

  • The audio samples in the Origins section should go in a box...I forget the code for it, but Odyssey Number Five is/has an example which you can copy paste. Also, these audio samples need descriptions (again, that article has examples)

Done, by Efe, thanks. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 23:08, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

  • "Fatt replied, "How long will it take?"" - what relevance does this have? Kinda confusing

But it's such a great quote, and so Jeff. But I deleted it and made the language more formal: Needing a keyboardist, Field asked his old band mate, Fatt, for his assistance in they thought would be a temporary project.--Figureskatingfan (talk) 23:19, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

  • A photo with all 4 of them doing the fingers would be great. But it'd need to be free - can't rationalise it when you have the other free one. :(

Yup. This is the third time I've said this, but the guys need to come close enough to where I live so that I can go to one of their meet-and-greets before a concert (which I'm entitled to, since my kids are disabled) with a camera and say, "Hey guys, everyone stand together and do that finger-wagging move so I can put it in your WP article!" ;) --Figureskatingfan (talk) 23:23, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

  • "Anthony Field arranged with the ABC" - just refer to him using surname
Done, see below.
  • "song writing sessions for a month each summer " - which year was this in...I'm getting a bit confused! :)
Clarifed; their song writing session occured each summer once a year.

*"was created by Cook after seeing professional" - don't need to wlink his name --Figureskatingfan (talk) 04:13, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

  • I think the Greg Page's retirement section should be put somewhere within the Success at home and abroad section, and be followed by a "Sam Moran era" section or something...otherwise you get confused when it talks about Moran before saying that Page left
Excellent suggestion. The other problem with this section is that it has the potential to be terribly long and unwieldy as we get further in time from Greg's retirement, so I think a new section is necessary. I also created a subsection, "Greg Page retirement", to make things more clear. There are a few times when Moran is mentioned in previous sections (like his quote about Jeff's schtick, and the finger-wagging image), but I think that's appropriate. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 04:47, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

*"Cook gave the" - again, don't wlink the names here

    • And in general, try and be a bit more careful with that sort of thing - using full names rather than surnames, etc. It's tough, I know!
  • Especially with this article, since the guys are all known by their first names on stage and in the media. There is one exception to this rule, and the reason for it is well documented. See Talk:The_Wiggles#Remaining_FAC_feedback, fourth point down. In the "Early career section", when talking about their stage personnas (their colors and schticks), the decision was made to use their first names because the prose just didn't work and didn't flow well the other way. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:00, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Try and not quote so much in the Page leaving section
Improved, I think.

*Last paragraph of that section needs sources for the quotes

  • Any of the redlinks notable?
There was one left, and I deleted it. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:12, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 01:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Support. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 08:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: Please check links; at least one appears dead. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 04:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I fixed the audio files because it break the paragraphs. Please add caption to those files in relation to the discussions in that section to make its use fair. --Efe (talk) 05:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I believe the changes I made fulfill this requirement. Using the above as an example, I made the files' captions more specific and descriptive. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 15:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
There is still no caption added in the audio sample box...and why in the "origins" section? --Efe (talk) 11:13, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Oppose The tone of voice of this article is simply not encyclopedic. The frequent use of direct speech gives it a fanzine flavour. Here are some examples:

  • Field, to test out the effect of their music on children, gave a copy of their album to one of his young students; the child's parent returned it, saying, "Take the tape back! It's driving me nuts!" because her child had listened to "Dorothy the Dinosaur" 40 times.
  • Needing a keyboardist, Field asked his old band mate, Fatt, to help. Fatt replied, "How long will it take?"
  • The Wiggles reported being turned down by a Sydney booking agent, who told them, "How am I going to make money out of four men singing children's songs? ... There'd be no money in it for me and there'd be no money in it for you. It's not a really good idea." They began to tour full-time in 1992.
--ROGER DAVIES talk 07:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Comment I think the author needs to fix these passages. Its really not good; they add nothing or little to the meaning. If these quotes really make sense, it would be better to re-word to remove quotations, as in direct sentence. --Efe (talk) 07:18, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Done. One of the challenges of this kind of article is that it's about a children's music group, and there are all these great quotes and antedotes out there. It's hard deciding which gems to use, and how to use them. One quote, from Anthony, was so great I put it on my user page: "I'm not even my own kids' favorite Wiggle." It was obviously not appropriate for this article, though. And that's unfortunate, 'cause it's such a great quote. ;) --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:57, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
No, you haven't done it (well, at least, not thoroughly enough) so my oppose remains in place. The article is still peppered with quotes of dubious merit. ("The Wiggles music isn't all that far removed from what we did in The Cockroaches, just a different subject matter".) This is supposed to an encyclopedic article not an interview :) The best advice here, I guess, is "murder your darlings". That is, lop out the bits you regard as your finest and most eloquent prose, and replace them with clear concise everyday English. --ROGER DAVIES talk 06:04, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I understand the reasoning behind this oppose, but I disagree with it. Here's why: I have changed some of them because I agreed that they didn't help the article's quality, but I think that we need to retain what's now there because they exhibit the spirit of this group. Every quote and antecdote is verifiable, and told by the group's members. Plus, they aren't that much different than what's on other FA articles. I was able to find two examples, and I'm sure there are more.
Example #1: R.E.M., which has been brought up as an example of a FA about a musical group, and something I should follow.
Of the van, friend-of-the-band Jane Pratt explained: "It had no seats in the back, and they would put all of their equipment in the back. When they would stay at hotels, three of them would go into one room, two would go in the other but they would keep rotating so that one person slept in the van, that was pretty much the plan."[9] "When you live in a van together for about five years, you get real close," joked Berry.[9]
Example #2: Sesame Street. BTW, this article has inspired me to improve The Wiggles. It proves that even an article about a children-focused entertainment entity can have a high quality article on WP.
Educator Sister Mary Mel O'Dowd worried that the show might start to replace "personalized experiences". "If Sesame Street is the only thing ghetto kids have, I don't think it's going to do much good. It never hurts a child to be able to count to 10 or recognize the 26 letters of the alphabet. But without the guidance of a teacher, he'll be like one of our preschoolers who was able to write 'CAUTION' on the blackboard after seeing it on the back of so many buses, and told me 'That says STOP.'"[34]
So I disagree that the quotes and anecdotes included in this article make it not encyclopedic. As a result, I request that this oppose be withdrawn, or if not, a compelling reason be given for it to remain. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:16, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. I'm not much fussed about the content of other featured articles; my focus now is on this one and whether I think it exemplifies Wikipedia's best work. One of the requirements for a featured article is that it is written to a professional standard. This article fails that criterion because it is written in a style more suitable for a tabloid interview or a fly-on-the-wall documentary. The tone of voice, the register, is inappropriate for an encyclopic entry and that is because this article is heavily interlaced with quotes broadly of a trivial nature. I note what you say but for as long as you continue to fail to respond to an actionable request, my opposition will remain in place. This issue can only be resolved to my satisfaction with a radical copy-edit to reduce the emphasis on quotes. --ROGER DAVIES talk 22:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Comments
Issues resolved, Ealdgyth - Talk 23:38, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
And I rechecked them as well. Thanks.--Figureskatingfan (talk) 06:10, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Nominator Support, of course. I believe that every single comment and suggestion has been considered and followed, all in good faith. This article has been thoroughly copyedited once, had three peer reviews, been through the GAN process twice before it passed, and been through a FAN three times now. It has had lots of input and feedback. I believe that it is now ready for FA-status. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 06:16, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment

:* Some dates in the footnotes need linking

  • Non-breaking spaces are needed between numerical and non-numerical elements, eg. "1.5 million children", "15 years" Additional eyes may be needed in case I missed something. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 23:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Logical quotation should be used, as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotation marks.
I believe this is completed. The issue is that WP MOS is different than my own style, so it's been difficult to follow it. More eyes could be used to ensure it's consistent. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 23:39, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Fixed by placing images on the right, as per MOS cited above. The only exception was the NASA image, which I placed on the left to follow this guideline, since the guys' eyes are looking to the right: Wherever possible, images of faces should be placed so that the face or eyes look toward the text, because the reader's eye will tend to follow their direction. Portraits with the face looking to the reader's right should therefore be left-aligned, looking into the text of the article.
  • Common terms do not need linking, eg. "music", "videos", "Christmas", "roses". Epbr123 (talk) 22:42, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Done. If I missed any, I apologise and again ask for additional eyes. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 21:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Object - the tone is unencyclopedic, especially in the section at the bottom for the characters. "Wags is a tall, brown, furry dog with floppy ears and a happy face" "Captain Feathersword, "the friendly pirate", wears a hat, patch, and puffy shirt" etc. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
In addition, some of the one line paras at the end need to be merged or expanded. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:14, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok, please remember the subject of this article. Every description of the characters in this article is accurate and verifiable, a difficult thing to do with children's characters. I suppose I could have included the characters descriptions on the Playhouse Disney site, but they're horrible and definately unencyclopedic. As I did above, I refer you to Sesame Street. IMO, one way that article is lacking is that it doesn't include references in its description of its characters. There is a single one-line paragraph at the end of The Wiggles Characters section, the line about Wags the Dog, because it was the only verifiable statement about Wags that I was able to find.

Problems

  • Matt Damon—if you format it correctly, you might get it to link to the article rather than show in red. Ah, it's another Matt Damon—better start a stub article and do a disambiguation; does he have a distinguishing middle name or some such? Same with the other redlink?
  • "Top 4000 ts"—ts is what?
The above two items were vandalism, which has been reverted.--Figureskatingfan (talk) 16:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Fair-use justification: I find it inadequate. If there's an educational function (as required), it's unclear in the main text. What is it about the settings that makes them suitable for children? What did they do to the original Cockroaches songs, musically and in terms of the lyrics? And how is the educational function of the Wiggles's songs achieved. More details, analysis, required. I don't see that the sources have this information. TONY (talk) 14:09, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. I have concerns about comprehensiveness. There are also a few prose issues and many quotations that are not directly cited.

  • Question on the timeline: Was the first self-titled album created before the stuff that happened in the second paragraph of the Origins section? I found it a little odd that it mentioned the "self-titled album" but took another paragraph to explain where the name came from.
  • I thought "songwriting" was one word
  • Need a citation for the quote here "Their songs combined "fun with educational messages" that were accessible to parents and children." (even if the next sentence cite covers it, just in case someone inserts another fact in the middle)
  • I may be interpreting this incorrectly, but this appears to be a bit of a contradiction in these 2 sentences "The Wiggles were musicians, "a rock band, pure and simple".[1] They were not tied to one style or genre of music"
  • Go through the article and watch for unnecessary repetition within sentences and paragraphs. (Ex: "Cook, as a guitarist, was conscious that he was probably the first guitarist children would see" two "guitarist" refs?) (Ex 2 :They have been awarded with several music industry awards in Australia")
  • "The Wiggles wrote new music each year since their inception; three albums worth of original children's music, drawing upon several genres of music and types of instruments, were written during marathon song writing sessions for a month each summer and were based on simple concepts familiar to young children" - Does this mean the wrote three albums total or that they wrote three albums a year each year since 1991?
  • This is a pretty broad claim "Fatt reported that children with autism "respond to [The] Wiggles and nothing else"." - I think that this might need to be more specific
  • Need citation for the quotation here "For a few years during the late 90s, while "riding an enormous wave of success in America and the UK", The Wiggles travelled in two planes and on two buses so that if disaster occurred, "at least half of them would survive and carry on". After "
  • Need citation for quotes: "Their "strong connection" with the US was "forged in the shell-shocked weeks after the terrorist attacks on New York in 2001," when The Wiggles travelled to America to perform despite the "stated risks".
  • Need a cite for the quotes: "n "one of the highlights of their 15 years of being together", The Wiggles were awarded honorary doctorate degrees from the Australian Catholic University in recognition of "their outstanding contribution to early child development" in 2006. "
  • This sentence makes it sound like the kids would want them to disband "The Wiggles "struggled" over their decision to replace Page, but they decided not to disband because they thought that was what their young audience would want."
  • The tone of this is off a bit - it reads like an ad from the Wiggles "Dorothy is a "rososaurus", a "yellow-spotted green dinosaur with surprisingly scary teeth".[34] She lives in a beautiful pink and purple house with her own Rosy Orchestra and a rose garden in her backyard. She loves to eat roses and dance the ballet.[34] She enjoys serving guests rose-derived treats such as "rosy tea".["
  • Need a citation for the quotes: "Ferrie described Dorothy as "a dinosaur superstar ... very open, friendly, and warm. She is like a mother figure even though she is only meant to be five, and kids really respond to her ... She is calm and mothering but friendly as well. She's young and still playful but has got a motherly feeling to her". "
  • Need a cite for quotes "Ferrie insisted that Dorothy "is number one after the boys including Captain Feathersword, in terms of who kids say they love""
  • This ref does not have a publisher listed: Bourgeau, Michel. "Play your guitar with Murray" (DOC). Retrieved on 2007-08-06.
  • Overall in the article there is an overemphasis on quotes.
  • There is no section about critical response. Have there been no reviews of their music? Have there been any controversies about the group?

Karanacs (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.